What I am suggesting is that the selection process is teleological in the very same sense in which the organism's physiological and behavioral activities are teleological (or structured by means/end relationships), and for the very same reason. An organism, for instance, engages in some sort of behavior in order to quench its thirst. If it tends to succeed, thanks to some heritable feature of its physiology or anatomy, then this feature tends to be positively selected. And the reason why descendants thereafter exhibit this feature, and have the ability to engage in the behavior that such structures enables, is precisely because they subserve the end that was being actively pursued by the ancestor: namely, quenching its thirst. I conclude that the process of evolution through natural selection does have a telos, but that telos isn't external to the life form of the evolving organism; it is rather internal to it. The main engine of evolution is the organism's already existing struggle to flourish and survive (in very specific ways) in its day to day existence. — Pierre-Normand
By not engaging, you confirm me in my position that we are discussing a faith position, not a rational conclusion. — Dfpolis
What is the limit of a representation? If a clock is a representation of time passing, is the conscious observer a representation of some symbolic modelling? That doesn't seem to jive though. A clock is a representation of time passing for an observer- it is instantiated in the observer. What then, does the observer of the clock instantiate in? Or is it self-instantiated? If so, what is that nature of the instantiating? — schopenhauer1
If you speak of a conscious being as an observer, then the specified act which the being is involved in, observing, is an act of representation. That is the being's function, as identified, observing, and observing requires noting and representing. Therefore to speak of the conscious being as an observer is to imply that the being is doing some symbolic modeling. — Metaphysician Undercover
I think the thrust of this comment is not directed at Aristotelian realism, but at the then-emerging modern empiricists, for whom the 'mind-independence' of phenomena was (and remains) an axiom. — Wayfarer
Both relativity and quantum theory tell us that measure numbers depend jointly on the prior state of the system and the type of measurement being made. — Dfpolis
Why then did Einstein famously ask the question, 'doesn't the moon continue to exist when nobody's looking at it?' — Wayfarer
I don't think that Platonic realism has much to do with that particular problem — Wayfarer
what is being called into question by quantum physics is whether particles exist before they're observed, and these particles had been presumed to be the 'fundamental constituents of reality'. — Wayfarer
Kant introduced the concept of the “thing in itself” to refer to reality as it is independent of our experience of it and unstructured by our cognitive constitution. — Emrys Westacott
Don't forget though, Aristotle also said that in another sense, time is that which is measured. — Metaphysician Undercover
I don't think it is appropriate to say that the thing which is measured is "time-like" because as the thing measured, it is the real thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
My point was that if you want to engage those whom you want to convince, you don't want to open the discussion by poisoning the well with such an obnoxious and unfair accusation. — SophistiCat
you don't appear to be familiar with secular thought on this subject. — SophistiCat
I am sorry for offending you. — Dfpolis
It was based on my experience of discussions with naturalists. Some have even rejected the foundations of science in order to maintain their faith positions. — Dfpolis
Have I made some specific error of biological fact, or ignored some obvious rejoinder? If so, I welcome your correction. — Dfpolis
Given that your ideas of what constitutes foundations of science are rather idiosyncratic, I suspect that what you interpret as patent irrationality in the service of "maintaining faith positions" is simply a case of disagreement over those matters — SophistiCat
I am not surprised at the hostile reception from self-professed naturalists who engage with you in Youtube comments. — SophistiCat
Teleology, rightly or wrongly, is commonly associated with intelligent agency, making it a poor fit for anything that doesn't have to do with human psychology, except in the context of supernatural and theological explanations. — SophistiCat
in epistemology I favor pluralism — SophistiCat
Why would a naturalist have an issue with a complex systems analysis of teleology, for example? — SophistiCat
What Kant did was to maintain the existence of noumenal reality while denying that it could be known -- thus staking a fundamentally irrational position. — Dfpolis
But I am taking a step back to its ontology. WHAT is "doing some symbolic modeling" without being self-referential? What is this "symbolic modelling" in and of itself? It turns into just word-games on the concept of mind. — schopenhauer1
I don't recall such a statement, which seems very unaristotelian. Do you have a reference? — Dfpolis
No, what is measured is some change, like the apparent motion of the heavens, the flow of sand, or atomic oscillations. — Dfpolis
What he denied was that it could be known scientifically. — tim wood
The contradictoriness of the Kantian doctrine of things in themselves is indubitable... — T. I. Oizerman, I. Kant's Doctrine of the 'Things in Themselves' and Noumena
Since the thing in itself (Ding an sich) would by definition be entirely independent of our experience of it, we are utterly ignorant of the noumenal realm. — The Philosophy Pages by Garth Kemerling
Though the noumenal holds the contents of the intelligible world, Kant claimed that man’s speculative reason can only know phenomena and can never penetrate to the noumenon. Man, however, is not altogether excluded from the noumenal because practical reason—i.e., the capacity for acting as a moral agent—makes no sense unless a noumenal world is postulated in which freedom, God, and immortality abide. — The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Whether or not Kant's physics is now entirely exploded is more than I know. I'm guessing that it has a Newtonian aspect, in that whatever precision it may have seemed to have then, is now at best approximation — tim wood
Read Physics Bk.4, Ch. 11, 219a:
"Time then is a kind of number (Number we must note is used in two senses--both of what is counted or the countable, and also of that with which we count. Time obviously is what is counted, not that with which we count: these are different kinds of things)" — Metaphysician Undercover
. What these clocks are measuring is the passing of time. — Metaphysician Undercover
I note that what is merely postulated is not in any sense known. So, my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known? — Dfpolis
The Greek word νοούμενoν nooúmenon, plural νοούμενα nooúmena, is the neuter middle-passive present participle of νοεῖν noeîn "to think, to mean", which in turn originates from the word νοῦς noûs, an Attic contracted form of νόος nóos[a] "perception, understanding, mind." A rough equivalent in English would be "something that is thought", or "the object of an act of thought".
when we passively experience the “external” world, what comes to us immediately is already merely an “appearance” rather than the thing in itself. But as human beings, we rarely just experience the world passively—and whenever we try to do something more (whenever we form beliefs about the world) we do so in terms of conceptual categories that are a part of our cognitive make-up rather than part of reality “in itself.” This means that the object of the understanding—the object as something we can have beliefs about, learn things about, etc.—is in a sense even further removed from the noumenon, the “thing as it is in itself,” than is the uncomprehended phenomenal object (what we might suppose is experienced by the newborn baby, [for whom of course experience is a chaos of unintegrated stimuli and wants]).
For these reasons Kant draws a line between the world of phenomenal objects that we can study and learn things about and the world of things-in-themselves (the noumenal world). In fact, Kant was convinced that our knowledge could never reach beyond the realm of phenomena. He thought we could confidently say there is a noumenal reality, a thing in itself, that isn’t identical with the phenomenal object we directly encounter in experience. While he’s convinced that “all theoretical knowledge of reason is limited to objects of experience,” that is, to phenomenal objects as presented by intuition and conceptualized by our cognition, he also thinks “that this leaves perfectly open to us to think the same objects as things in themselves, though we cannot know them. For otherwise we should arrive at the absurd conclusion that there is appearance without something that appears.”
So, in summary: we can know that there are things-in-themselves or noumena, we cannot know anything about them. The objects of perception are already shaped by the process of being perceived, and are further shaped by the conceptual categories we must make use of in order to even begin to formulate knowledge claims.
Thank you for the reference, but note that it is not the conclusion, only a step in a two chapter analysis of the nature of time. The conclusion at the end of ch, 11, is: "It is clear, then, that time is 'number of movement in respect of the before and after', and is continuous since it is an attribute of what is continuous." "Number of movement" is "measure of change" in other translations. — Dfpolis
Not quite. Since we cannot see time, we can't measure it. We can see change, so that is what we measure to determine the passage of time. — Dfpolis
my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known? — Dfpolis
Now there's a big statement. You're aware that Coppleson, in his chapter on modern philosophy, says that the attitude that 'all that can be known, can be known by means of science', is the essential meaning of positivism. When I first read that, forty years ago, it inspired me to enroll in philosophy to articulate what's wrong with it - I've been working on it ever since. — Wayfarer
we can't perceive any object as it is in itself, but only as it appears to us, as it is 'given to us in appearances'. — Wayfarer
knowledge is limited to appearances, given to us by the senses, judged according to the categories. — Wayfarer
when we passively experience the “external” world, what comes to us immediately is already merely an “appearance” rather than the thing in itself.
this leaves perfectly open to us to think the same objects as things in themselves, though we cannot know them.
I don't see how anything that has been subsequently been discovered by physics or any form of science, can undermine that essential understanding. — Wayfarer
I don't see the issue you're trying to point out, perhaps you could elaborate. Of course there must be some sort of "self", we're talking about intention, and intention is a property of something, it's not self-subsistent. But even "self-subsistent" implies self, intention would itself be a self.. — Metaphysician Undercover
Wrong way 'round. He doesn't start with noumena. he starts with, e.g, the chair. He know it's a chair. Then the question becomes three-fold: 1) what does it mean that it is a chair, 2) how does he know it is a chair, and 3) how - what - does he know about how he knows it's a chair. By the time you get through this, you know it's a chair, but in terms of the philosophy of science of the time, you can't ground that knowledge in the science.So, my question is, if noumena can't be know scientifically, how can they be known? — Dfpolis
Sorry, but I'm not accustomed to your use of "instantiated". Could you explain? — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem is that, as I and many others read Kant, he is not only denying God-like knowledge in humans, but any true knowledge of things in themselves. Yet, if noumena stand behind phenomena, 'affecting' us (as Kant says), then we certainly know that they have the power to so affect is -- to induce our experience of their correlative phenomena. So, while I sympathize with much of what Kant seems to be struggling toward, I think he has it wrong -- and disastrously so. — Dfpolis
"when we passively experience the “external” world, what comes to us immediately is already merely an “appearance” rather than the thing in itself."
This is either-or thinking. We don't experience either the thing in itself, or the appearance. Rather, the appearance is the thing in itself as revealed to us. — Dfpolis
Why should there be a separate, unknowable, chair in itself and how do we know that there is? — Dfpolis
The point in question was special pleading by naturalists on the principle of sufficient reason. My position, stated by Freud in The Psychopathology of Everyday Life, is that if you allow any exception to the principle, you undermine the whole structure of science. — Dfpolis
It occurred after no one could rebut my argument for the existence of God in a manner consistent with the foundations of science. — Dfpolis
It depends on what you mean by "supernatural and theological explanations." — Dfpolis
It is clear from physics, chemistry and biology that many systems have a potential to a determinate end. That is all it means to have a telos — Dfpolis
I strongly suspect it is because they see telloi as strong evidence of intelligence — Dfpolis
[Kant] does not say that it makes no sense to talk about there being things in themselves. He presupposes that there's a way in which things are in themselves. And then denies that we can know that. — Πετροκότσυφας
Representations are made by minds. What is the thing that is an emergent mind? What is the emerging itself? — schopenhauer1
We can't deny that our knowledge comprises, in part, sensory impressions, and in part judgements and comparisons, right? When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ it as an object from the raw material of perception. Your eyes receive the lightwaves reflected or emanated from it, your mind organises the image with regards to all of the other stimuli impacting your senses at that moment – either acknowledging it, or ignoring it, depending on how busy you are; your memory will then compare it to other objects you have seen, from whence you will (hopefully) recall its name, and perhaps know something about it.
And that is the understanding behind 'constructivism', and it's very different to representative realism. So in that respect, Kant is completely different to Locke - in fact, Locke was just the kind of empiricist he had in mind when he said 'percepts without concepts are blind'. — Wayfarer
What would you mean by "emergent", and is this an appropriate adjective for "mind"? — Metaphysician Undercover
Your question is, why there is anything other than the phenomenal chair? I do not think anyone claims that there is any thing other than the phenomenal chair. What separate chair would there be? The only chair is the phenomenal chair. But let's try a quick thought experiment. As it happens, the chair is red. But we turn out the lights. What color is the chair now? And we might as well ask, what makes it a chair? Is it a chair, in its own self? — tim wood
Lewis White Beck, in a preface to one of his translations of one of Kant's Critiques makes an illuminating point. His (Kant's) more frequent phrase is not ding an sich, but rather ding an sich selbst, translated as "thing in itself as it is in itself." Distinguishing it from what our perception renders it to our consciousness. — tim wood
Now try to say something, anything, about the chair that is not in any way conditioned and informed by (your) perception. I think Kant would argue that you can't. That is to say that science, which has in itself no perception, can say nothing about the chair. What do you say? — tim wood
As Emrys Westacott says, it is simply an observation about the conditional nature of knowledge - that all human knowledge is in some sense constructed and mediated - we're not 'all-knowing', even in respect of those things that we seem to know exactly. And that actually is quite in keeping with what you then go onto say about Aquinas. I think from the perspective of Christian philosophy, we only see 'through a glass darkly' - that this is an inevitable consequence of the human condition. — Wayfarer
When you perceive something - large, small, alive or inanimate, local or remote - there is a considerable amount of work involved in ‘creating’ it as an object from the raw material of perception — Wayfarer
... That is the background to the question 'what is the real X' and the distinction between reality and appearance - a distinction which manifests in Kant as the difference between the noumenal and phenomenal domains. — Wayfarer
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